Is anyone celebrating Friendsgiving this year? Please refer to last years post Friendsgiving With the Bombsquad at Cherry Bombe. Last week began their second year of celebrating these fun zoom discussions/demonstrations with “friends” based around food.

If you are gathering together with friends before Turkey Day a Fall/Thanksgiving charcuterie board is a great way to share. I love to make these but go crazy trying to decide on which ingredients to buy and use. So many kinds of meat, cheese, crackers and so on. But having a theme makes it easier.

There are so many homemade recipes that would give your board a personal touch such as dips, marinated veggies, salami roses, parmesan crisps, homemade cookies and the list is endless. I chose not to do that this time as I was short on time and wanted to assemble this before Thanksgiving. See my post Salami Roses for another cute idea!

Ingredients I used:

• grapevine cornucopia (holds the green grapes)
• mini pumpkin: used for caramel dip (I looked for more mini pumpkins but all the stores have is Christmas)
• fresh fruits: tangerines, peeled and left whole with a rosemary stem (I even included a Satsuma orange with stem attached), sliced  Honey Crisp and Golden Delicious apples dipped in honey/water mixture, green grapes, pomegranate seeds, cranberries
• dried fruit: apricots and kiwi
• meats: summer sausage, sliced and trimmed prosciutto rolled up
• cheese: brie round with center cut out with a pumpkin cookie cutter (filled with cranberry/cherry preserves), fuego jack, havarti, aged cheddar and gouda cut-outs using turkey, pumpkin and leaf mini cookie cutters
• jelly/honey: cranberry/cherry preserves, lavender honey
• crackers/bread: mini toasts, Simple Truth cranberry oat crackers, short breadsticks,  Carr’s water crackers, Good Thins (garden veggie – delicious), Firehook Garlic Thyme Baked Crackers
• nuts/seeds: pumpkin, macadamia
• dips: Mike’s Hot Honey, caramel
• snacks: Pepperidge Farm Goldfish cheddar colors – perfect for Fall (see comment – these frequently were snacks for Julia Child’s dinner guests), rice crackers
• sweets: turkey cookies, dark chocolate leaves, mini alphabet cookies to spell THANKFUL, skittles (Fall candy such as candy corn or pumpkins not to be found)
• herbs: rosemary, sage, thyme (to garnish)

Goldfish: I recently read that Julia Child served Goldfish as an appetizer at her regular dinner parties but she also served them as a preamble to her Thanksgiving dinner. How could I not add them to my Friendsgiving Board. Who doesn’t love The Snack That Smiles Back! I even gave small bags of Goldfish out as a treat on Halloween!

Another fun fact is that Juju was a nickename Julia’s father called her. I was given this nickname by a nephew (who at the time was only two years old and could not say “Aunt Judi” almost 40 years ago! A few things in common except I am a lot shorter and don’t even come close to her fabulous way of cooking 🙂

Goldfish History: They were originally invented by Oscar J. Kambly at Swiss biscuit manufacturer Kambly in 1958 to celebrate his wife who waa a Pisces. Goldfish snacks were introduced to the United States in 1962 by Pepperidge Farm Founder Margaret Rudkin.

How to Keep Apples From Browning: There are many different methods to do this beginning with just submerging your apple slices in water and weighing them down with a paper towel on top. Supposedly salt water is the best way but my favorite is to use honey as it imparts a slight flavor that goes well with the apples. Just add 2 tbsp. of honey to a cup of water, submerge the apple slices for at least 30 seconds and no more thn a couple of minutes; rinse and store in an air-tight covered container in the refrigerator until ready to use. You are trying to reduce or eliminate the apple slices exposure to air after they have been cut. IT HONESTLY WORKS! Two hours later and there is no sign of browning!!!